Slow, so what?
When I was living in Japan for four months, I bought this t-shirt.
The sentiment is antithetical to my usual modus operandi of “I can’t stop.”
Which is why I bought the shirt. To remind me that balance isn’t a one-and-done; it’s a continual conversation with the present moment.
About what’s here right now.
About what I might bring.
About what I might let go.
It’s also a conversation about ratio.
How much this?
How much that?
We often forget that the answers we offer to these questions affect everything in our lives—mind, body, energy, health.
It’s what I was trying to convey to the high school football kickers I taught yoga to this past week. These were fit, strong, young men, and yet many of them were grunting and groaning as we moved throughout the practice. Their bodies were so used to being strong that they had a hard time being soft. Supple.
I say this not to shame them, but because to me, it was a perfect example of the balance I’m talking about.
I invited these guys to think about the difference between a stone and a river.
A stone is strong, certainly.
But it can’t move.
It sits there hard, immobile.
Whereas a river moves with flow and power.
Balance often invites more both and rather than either or.
An important lesson, especially when I’m so prone to rushing.
Yes, it is important to get things done. To live the hell out of life.
But when I rush, I not only miss things, I often break things.
When I slow, still, I see the bunny eating clover. I spy the white chipmunk hiding beside my path. Momentum no longer rushes me past the present so that I miss it entirely.
And maybe most importantly, I stop treating life as an emergency and start treating it as a sanctuary, where holy things are hidden in plain sight.
Like a summer peach.
Sweet and succulent, ripe right here and now.
I stop.
I taste.
I feel the difference.
Between eat and savor.
Between living for the next and abiding in the now.
All it takes is One. Slow. Bite.
A juicy joyspring of dribble & laughter.
Yes, here.
Yes, now.
Slow. Simple. Sweet.